5 Things To Help You Be Consistent AF

Foreign. This is Busy Getting Better, the podcast for women who are committed to prioritizing their own personal growth. I'm your host, Madison J. A mindset and money coach, a first generation wealth builder and a woman on a mission to help you master your finances and live your best life. Money is not all we are covering though, because in order to live your best life, you have to become your best self. So we are diving deep into all things personal development and bringing you the mindset shifts, money, tips and inspiration. You need to go out there, be bold, and build the life you can't stop daydreaming about. It's time to get busy, babe. Busy getting better. What is up? Welcome back to Busy Getting Better. Today's conversation is all about the topic of consistency. Because let's be real, showing up consistently is hard, especially if you're trying to show up in a new way. If you are trying to switch your habit and build more consistent habits, doing something that you haven't done before is freaking challenging. It is really hard to build new habits. It's really hard to change direction because our brain loves routine. It loves comfort. It loves the familiar, it loves the known. But if you want to make major changes in your life, if you want to pivot, if you want to change direction, if you want to do something new and do something different, it's going to require new habits. No matter what the goal is, you're going to have to change something. Because when we change our habits, we're changing us, we're changing our personality. And if you want to make shifts in life, then that means you've got to go to what makes us us. And that is what we do every single day, how we show up, and what our daily habits are. So today I'm going to break down five ways that you can start showing up more consistently in your life so you can go and crush those goals that you're working towards and you can start to uplevel yourself and become the version of yourself that I know you want to become. Because you would not be listening to this podcast if you weren't here for personal growth and if you weren't looking to make some shifts and some change and to level up your life a little bit. So let's break down all of these different ways that can help you show up as that version of yourself that is going to go out and kick ass and crush all of your goals. Okay, up first, we've got my favorite thing to talk about, my favorite thing to help people get clear on, which is Their vision or their why. There are so many things I can talk about on this topic alone, but first I just want to mention that most people set goals based on what they feel like they should do. For example, people set goals to save money because people say that that's what you need to do to get ahead. Start saving money and putting it away. But if you're just saving money because someone told you you should be doing it, but you don't really understand why or what it's helping you accomplish, or what it's going to help you do in the future, you're likely gonna fall off of that wagon. You're gonna stop saving money, because what's the point? Because you don't really get what it's helping you. And also, in the moment of excitement or things popping up, you're just going to go spend all that money because you're like, why do I have all this money sitting around anyway? Like, I don't really understand what the purpose of it is. Or if you are trying to work out, because everyone talks about how you should be focusing on your physical health and working out, but you don't really understand why, or you don't really care. And there's no real true motivation and there's no vision that you're working towards. You're just going to keep hitting snooze. You're going to find excuses. Your day is going to get busy, you're not going to make it to the gym. You'll say you'll get to it tomorrow, but tomorrow comes and guess what? Same excuses are there because you don't have a why. There's no clear vision. There's no clear goal. You're not motivated by it. So this is a big mistake people make is doing things because they feel like they should be doing them. And that's what you want to get away from. If you have any goals you're working towards because you just feel like you should have them, this is one big step that you can make to start showing up more consistent, and that is to craft the strongest why envision possible. What are these goals helping you accomplish? What kind of life are you going to be living on the other side of these goals? Who are you going to be? How are you going to show up? How are you going to feel? How are you going to carry yourself throughout the day? How are you going to be able to enjoy the fruits of your labor of focusing on these goals and focusing on this new habit? If we're talking about the topic of saving money in this, what the heck are you going to be able to buy with it? What kind of future are you going to be able to live when you start to see how your money is compounding when you have it invested? If you want to save for a new car or a vacation or a home, what kind of life is that going to look like for you? How are you going to drive that new car? What are you going to feel like in that new home? Like, you've got to get so crystal clear on what the life is going to look like. And then you've also got to get really crystal clear on what the goal is that you're working towards. So if you are just saying, I want more money, I want to save more money, that is so ambiguous. Do you want a penny more? A dollar more? Like that's not a clear enough goal that you're working towards. You got to be like, all right, I want to go on this vacation and it is going to cost me $3,217. Right? You did some research. You know exactly what it is that you're working towards. Now you've got such a clear goal and now you're going to have a vision of what the heck you're going to do on that vacation. What are your activities? How much fun are you going to be having? How are you going to be spending your days? Are your feet going to be in the sand reading a book all day? Like, what is it for you? What are you actually working towards? I am telling you, being crystal clear on your why behind something and having the most picture perfect vision of what it is that you're working towards and how hitting and achieving that goal is going to make you feel is a huge, huge step in helping you show up consistently. Because once you start picturing it and once you have a stick, super crystal clear goal of what it is that you're working towards, it's going to be a lot easier to show up. But what people usually do is just have a should goal and they have a very broad, vague goal that isn't motivating, it's not inspiring. You're not able to actually see what the heck it is that you're working towards and what all of this hard work and what showing up consistently is going to give you in the end. And so if you do not have a clear vision or a strong why, before you even move on to these next things, I want you to grab a journal and get really clear on what that is. You want to be able to articulate all of the senses that you possibly could when you achieve that goal. What are you going to see? What are you going to hear? What are you going to feel? What are you going to smell? What are you going to taste? An example of this can be okay when I save up that 3,000 and whatever the change was dollars and I get to go on this vacation. Oh, I'm gonna feel so at ease. I'm gonna feel so relaxed sitting on the beach with my toes in the sand. I'm gonna be reading my favorite book. I'm gonna hear the ocean waves crashing against the beach. I'm gonna have a coconut water in my hand. That's gonna taste so good. I'm gonna smell the sea breeze coming up over the ocean onto me. Like, I got a clear ass vision now of what my day is gonna look like on this vacation. And I don't know about you, but I already feel more motivated to go save, to sit on this tr. So take some time and do this for yourself. Get so clear on what the heck it is that you're working towards and why. And this is going to be a huge game changer for you for helping you show up more consistently. Okay. Once you've got that clear vision, you know what you're working towards, you're probably like, I am motivated, right? I'm feeling good. I want my toes in the sand. I want to read that book and drink that coconut water and just feel and experience that peace and that bliss that the feeling that being here in ocean on the beach gives me. And now you're like, all right, I am going to go do all of the things that are going to help me get there. And this is going to be lesson number two, which is don't do all of the things. If you're working towards a new goal, a new habit, you need to make it as simple as possible. You need to take baby steps. You need to create an environment that allows you to succeed with a new goal, a new habit that is a no brainer. So instead of setting out to now go save 80% of your paycheck to go towards this goal, start with saving 10%. Start small. Start with moving money over every single paycheck, like whatever you can move into this savings account, but start small. This goes for any single new habit that you're trying to create. People tend to try and just completely flip the script. And again, your brain loves habit. It loves normalcy, it loves the known. And so when you try and just totally flip your mind or flip your life upside down, you're going to have a hard time staying consistent, consistent because you are trying to do way too much at once. And so you want to pick what is the smallest goal, the smallest step that is going to help you get closer to that goal that you're working towards and make that your new habit. And then from there, once that becomes part of your everyday, you can add something else or you can make that goal or that habit bigger. But you don't want to just go ahead and do it all. Because what happens when people try and switch it upside down and just go full force into it is that they usually start to adopt some sort of all or nothing approach. And all or nothing mentality where now you're like, hey, I'm trying to do all of the things but you aren't able to show up that way and you're not able to stay consistent on all of them. So then it's like, ugh, okay, well, I'll just start again tomorrow. Like, does that sound familiar? This is so common. And so what you want to do is not try and do it all and not have an all or nothing approach. If you make one step in the right direction towards your goal or you do one of the things that you set out to do in a day or in a week, that's a win. You got to count that as a win. And so you've got to not let it mess up your day and say, cool, we're just going to start over. Like, you just keep moving in the right direction and you just make small baby consistent habits until one day you're going to look back and you're going to be like, wow, this habit is just part of my life now and I don't even think about it. And that is what you want to get to. You don't want to try and create all this massive change overnight. You want to take small baby steps to start seeing, stepping into that version of you where that habit is just a habit. It's not something you have to think about anymore. It just comes naturally to you. Okay, number three on our list is really, really important to understand when we're talking about trying to make change. And this is, you need to stop waiting for motivation. Motivation is not something that is going to be there forever. Motivation is great to get you started, right? You create that really big vision. You have a strong why you're feeling motivated. When you're in that state of motivation. This is when you want to build a plan. A plan that is going to help you stay on track for Your goals for those days that you do not feel motivated, which I promise you, they come. There are going to be plenty of days on your journey of trying to accomplish your goal that you are not going to want to do what you know you need to do. And so you need to not be waiting around for motivation and hoping that motivation is just going to show up for you all the time. Because it's. It's not. Motivation is fleeting. It is not going to be there all the time. So when you're in the state of motivation, this is the perfect time to create a plan. In a plan again that has little baby steps that you can stay accountable to. It is way too common where people just think that they can wing it and they'll just figure it out as they go. But it's really hard to stay on track for something if you don't know what the next steps are. If you don't know what you're supposed to be doing before you're doing it, it's really easy to just write it off and again, say you'll do it tomorrow or, or say you'll circle back to it. But when you have a really clear vision of where you're going and you have really clear step by step instructions and a plan laid out for yourself, I mean, now it's getting even harder for you to tell yourself that you're not going to do it because you know where you're heading, you know what is on the other side of all of this work and you know the exact steps to get there. And when you build your plan, you want to do as much pre planning as possible so that whenever you get to the step or get to the decision that needs to be made, like you've already done it. So a really good way to pre plan and not bank on motivation could be an example of, you know, setting out your gym clothes the night before you go to the gym. It could be looking at your to do list for the week and planning out when you're going to get all of your activities done for the week on Sunday versus waiting until midweek when you're busy and you have all these other tasks that are trying to buy for your attention. You've already set aside the time that you're going to get it done. So time blocking on your calendar to get a task done could be really good. If we're talking about the topic of saving money or investing it, automate it. There's so much technology nowadays where you can just automate these goals and set it and Forget it so that it's already done for you. But again, what you do not want to do is wait until you're in the moment to do that next step and not know what the heck you're supposed to do, not know where the heck you're supposed to go next. Because it's going to be really hard to move forward. It's going to be really hard to stay on track, especially if you don't know that the path that you're on and the steps that you're taking are actually going to lead to where you're trying to go. If there's no clarity around, okay, I know if I do X, Y and Z, I will get there as long as I stay consistent. This is a big gap as well. So you want to make sure that your plan is something that is proven. You want to make sure that you know that the steps that you're taking are actually going to lead you in the right direction. And again, once you know where you're going and you know the plan and you know the steps and you know that if you just stay with it, then you're going to get there, then it's going to be way, way harder for you to find excuses and to find reasons to not show up for yourself. Okay, number four might be a little bit of some tough love here for you guys, but in order to show up consistently, in order to do something new, to do something different, to adopt new habits, you are probably going to have to let go of some fear fears that you're holding onto. There are so many fears that we have when we're trying to accomplish something new. And these fears show up in the form of limiting beliefs. So let me break down some of the most common fears that might be holding you back from showing up consistently and bringing all of your dreams into your reality. The first one is going to be fear of failure. If you are doing something new that you have never done before, then you might be nervous that you're going to fail. And shifting your mindset from having a fear of failure to having more of a growth mindset and understanding that there really is no such thing as failure. There is just learning new things. Any skill that you have right now, you likely did multiple times. Unless you are just some crazy intelligent genius that just came out of the womb knowing how to do all of the things that you know how to do now, which I don't know if anyone exists like that, then you have likely tried and failed and tried and failed and tried and failed in multiple aspects of your life. And for some reason it gets harder the older that we get to try and put ourselves in new situations where we're going to fail again. Unless you have learned to adopt the mentality of having a growth mindset. And that growth mindset is exactly what I just said. Where you're looking at nothing as a failure and everything as an opportunity to learn. And when you are trying new things and things don't go the way that you wanted them to, or it is a quote unquote fail. All you want to do in that is take a lesson, learn something from it, and then go out and do it again and try again with the new knowledge and the new lesson that you have from the last round. And that is how success is created. That is how people win. That is how you're going to create. The life that you're trying to create is by not being afraid to fail and just viewing everything as an opportunity to learn something about yourself. Learn something about the goal that you're you're going after. Apply it and keep moving forward and don't let it get you down. Okay, the next fear I want to talk about is something that's really interesting because when I first heard about this, I was like, who the heck would have this fear? That is so silly. And now I see it, I totally get it. And I think I still probably have this fear as well in some aspects of my business and my own journey that I'm going on, which is this fear of success. Now if you have never heard about someone having a fear of success, you might also be like, what the heck, I have no issues. I want success, I want the money, I want the acknowledgement, I want the goals, I want the achievement, whatever. I don't relate to that at all. I totally relate to the fear of failure. But fear of success, like you're crazy, lady, Let me break it down for you and show you what it means to have fear of success. And maybe this might be one of the fears that is showing up for you as well once you learn a little bit more about it. So when you are successful and you succeed in your goals, I want you to think about how your life is going to change and who you might lose along that journey. Maybe it is friends or family members that might not come along the way with you as you lead down this road to success. Maybe being successful is leading you towards a path where you're going to have a completely different friend group, a completely different day to day routine. Maybe you're going to be showing up in a way that allows people to judge you like this, like me creating a podcast. Maybe your fear of success could be showing up as having a fear for money. Like, maybe you don't trust yourself to be a good custodian to money. Maybe you don't know what to do with it. And so internally, subconsciously, you might have a fear of success because you don't know what that's going to do to you. Maybe you've heard that people that have money are bad, and so you subconsciously think that you are going to be a bad person if you have money. So again, you're not going to let yourself stay consistent because you have this fear of success. You have this fear of, well, what is my life going to look like? And what am I going to look like? Who am I going to be when all of these goals of mine come to life? And this leads into another really big fear as well, which is the fear of being seen and judged. We live in a society where we want to fit in. We want to abide by social norms. We want to do the things that are going to help us be a part of the clan that is innately ingrained in us. And so when we're doing something different and we're building a new habit or we're stepping towards a goal that maybe we have never gone after before, or maybe people around us have never gone after before, you know, we're afraid to show up. We're afraid to be seen because being seen allows us to be judged. And when we're judged, that can bring up a lot of insecurities about ourselves. It can bring up something that maybe we don't want to subject ourselves to. And so that fear of being seen and that fear of being judged can hold us back from going after our goals. And so a good way to start figuring out if any of these fears are showing up for you and holding you back from going all in on your goals and going all in on changing your habits and showing up. How you want to show up is to maybe sit down and start reflecting on some of these things and start to ask yourself, what is holding me back? Why am I not showing up the way that I know I want to show up? Who am I afraid to disappoint? Who am I afraid to lose? What am I afraid to lose? And then on the other side of that, start to write down and figure out, but what are you going to gain? Who are you going to become? How are you going to get to live the life that you want to live. If you decide to move past these fears, if you decide to not let these fears control you and hold you back from the life you want to live. And I think you'll surprise yourself when you start to realize what comes up for you. I think sometimes we just don't allow ourselves to really think about what in us is the reason that we're not showing up and what fears are holding us back from going after our goals. But there's likely one, if not multiple of those fears that are the reason that you're not going all in and you're not showing up and you're not staying consistent within the goals that you're seeking to accomplish. And once you identify one of those fears or however many of those fears you resonate with, just know that you can work through them. Once you identify them, that is step one. And you can start to rewrite your fears. You can start to look your fears in the face and say, thank you for trying to keep me safe. Because that ultimately is what this fear is of. These fears are trying to keep us safe. And so you can thank your fears for trying to keep you safe and say, but I'm going to choose to move on. I'm going to choose to continue to work towards this goal because I know what it's going to do for me and I know the life that I can live on the other side of this fear. Okay, the fifth and final thing that you can do to help you start showing up more consistently is to give yourself some grace. Making changes is so hard. If it was easy to show up as your best self every single day, learn new skills, learn new habits, then wouldn't everybody be doing just that? Changing who you are and changing your habits and prioritizing yourself in a new way is a challenge. It's supposed to be a challenge. And so learn to have just a little bit more compassion for yourself. If you are trying to change your life, you are doing what very few decide to to do. It is so much easier to stay where you're at. It's so much easier to be complacent. It's so much easier to not go after the hard things and to not go after your dreams and your goals. It's just easier to just sit still and let life pass you by. But what's not easy is getting to the end of your life and looking back and knowing that your fears and your inconsistency held you back from going after the life that you know you deserve to live. And so just give yourself grace and know that every single day is an opportunity for you to show up again and continue to just move the rock in the right direction and to continue to just show up better for yourself every single day. And remember that life is all about the journey. Your happiness is going to come from being on this road, from prioritizing your goals and new habits every single day. And it's supposed to be fun. It is a challenge, but it is also supposed to be fun. That is the whole point of life, is to continue to discover yourself and continue to grow and continue to evolve. And I know that you can do it. I know that you can implement some of these things into your life and go after your dreams and bring them into reality. I know that you can do it. And I hope that you know you can do it, too. And so I want to leave you with this quote that I've got written on a whiteboard in my office that absolutely lights a fire under my ass, and I hope it does the same for you. And that quote is, whatever, you're not changing, you're choosing. And that is what I'm going to leave you with today. I hope you guys are able to take something from this, and I hope this helps you become more consistent in bringing your dreams, your goals into reality. And I will see you on the next episode. Hey, before you go, I just want to go ahead and say thank you for spending a little bit of your time with me today. And also congratulations for finding a chunk of time to carve out and focus on you and moving the needle and becoming a better version of yourself. If there is anybody that you think could benefit from this podcast, please share it with a friend, share it with a family member, Feel free to share it on your socials and help me spread the word about busy getting better. Thank you so much and I will see you on the next episode.